Talk:Korean influence on Japanese culture

Kugyol and katakana

Okay, our article on Gugyeol explicitly states that that system was first developed in Korea after katakana developed in Japan. I know other Wikipedia articles are not supposed to take priority over external reliable sources, but there are a few complications here. First, the source cited [1] was not written by Sohn but by Ramsey. Second, Ramsey doesn't go into much detail on what the relationship between the two was, making it a bit unclear what he's talking about when he says "kugyol"; I have no choice but to check our article on the subject, and our readers will do the same. If the Gugyeol article is chronologically confused on when the system developed, then that article needs to be tweaked in accordance with reliable sources before we claim katakana (which developed in the ninth century) before we go around implying that it was based on a system that "first came into use in the early Goryeo dynasty". Third, what Ramsey actually says in his article is that the linguistic/cultural tides started turning in the "late traditional period" and already in the 16th century Korean was taking more influence from Japanese than vice versa, and today the Japanese language has a huge influence on everyday Korean. This is not what the creators of this article want to admit, and it's not what Ramsey was being inaccurately quoted as saying. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 16:14, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

S. Robert Ramsey is just one of many scholars who believe that katakana was based off Gugyeol. In his book he spends several paragraphs discussing the various ways that the Korean language influenced the Japanese language. By contrast, he says almost nothing about Japanese influence on the Korean language prior to the colonial period.TH1980 (talk) 19:18, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

He says significantly more about Japanese influence on the Korean language prior to the colonial period than about kugyol and katakana. Also, if Ramset is just one of a great many scholars, then you should have no problem locating sources to support your claim and edit the gugyeol article so that article can be chronologically consistent with our katakana article and this one. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 01:42, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

@TH1980: I notice you blankly reverted me again without making any attempts to address my concerns, or even indicating that you understand them.[2] If you do not indicate either here on the gugyeol article that under the definition you are working with "gugyeol" refers to something that existed before the 9th century CE and was known to the Japanese monks who developed katakana, I will revert back and bring this to RSN to see if anyone else can help work out the problem. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 03:12, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

@Hijiri 88: Fair enough.TH1980 (talk) 03:56, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

@TH1980: If Mikiso Hane actually says on page 39 of his general historical survey of Japan that Okura was "a Korean who lived in Japan", then he had a poor grasp of the scholarly consensus on this issue, and is directly contradicted by the vast majority of reliable secondary sources, who either hold to the majority opinion that Okura was the son of a Kudaran medical doctor named Okuni, but was either born in Japan or (while still an infant) was taken by his father who fled the peninsula when Kudara fell, or hold one of the minority views like that he was a sutra copyist or a member of the "Yamanoue clan" who claimed imperial descent. No sober historian trained in the relevant area refers to him as "a Korean who lived in Japan".

But I don't actually think it's the case that Hane disagrees with the mainstream view: I think he says something else, and you are deliberately misquoting him in order to get around the consensus that has already been established on this issue on the relevant talk page. If you want your personal opinion of Yamanoue no Okura's "nationality" to be cited anywhere on English Wikipedia, please ask User:Cckerberos, User:Sturmgewehr88 and User:Shii to take back their earlier statements on the issue, or find other neutral third-parties who agree with you. Please do not edit war to maintain an anti-consensus wording in a separate fork article.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:00, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Also (and this point just occurred to me now) you cited Ramsey as holding this view and were reverted; you then cited a different Ramsey source and falsely attributed his view to another scholar; when called out on this, you claimed Ramsey is "just one of many"who hold this view. Care to name one? You seem to have lied about your more recent source (I say "lied" because it's inconceivable you read the source closely enough to pick out a tiny piece of data like that but accidentally failed to notice the name of the author) in order to give the false impression that it was written by someone other than your previous source, and then directly stated that presenting the view as being held by more than one scholar is your goal. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 08:05, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

@Hijiri 88: I do not appreciate being accused of "lying" (as you put it). The book by Mikiso Hane says, "Another significant literary accomplishment of this period was the compilation of the Manyoshu... The Korean influence is also present in the anthology. One of the three main poets of the Manyoshu, Yamanoe Okura, it is now believed, was a Korean immigrant in Japan." What more do we need than this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by TH1980 (talk • contribs) 00:58, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

@TH1980: You deliberately misrepresented the author of your source as being someone other than the author of your previous source, and then explicitly stated that it was your intention to show that this view was held by more than one scholar -- what do you want me to call that?

As for Okura: What you need to do is go hunt down more sources on the Korean influence on the 萬葉集, then add that information to our article on the 萬葉集, not here. Additionally, if that is the exact quote, then your edit was indeed a misrepresentation of the source. That "Korean influence" was probably present in the very first waka anthology, which was mostly forgotten between the 10th and 18th centuries, and this Korean influence was only discovered in the latter half of the 20th century, does not "show the Korean influence on Japanese culture". It's also impossible to read that quote as saying the influence is "by by Yamanoe Okura, a Korean who lived in Japan". It's not only historically anachronistic (how do you define "Korean"?), but also borderline racist to call 帰化人 and 渡来人 "Koreans living in Japan". The only way you could read your source the way you have is if you wanted to reinstate poorly-sourced text that was removed from this article months ago -- months, in fact, before you under your current user name even edited this article.

Tell me, how did you come across this page, and why did you reinstate claims that had already been removed months before you came across this article? Who are you, and which other accounts have you used?

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 01:54, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

There is no doubt that the material on Yamanoe no Okura should be included in some form. Mikiso Hane's book is a perfectly fine and reliable source to use, but I've seen the same thing noted in other sources. For instance, Roy Andrew Miller concurs with this theory in his article "Plus Ça Change" for the Journal of Asian Studies. Miller also says that, according to Yamanoe no Okura's biographer Nakanishi Susumu, there are direct corollaries between Yamanoe no Okura's poetic style and earlier Korean poetry. Of course I'm aware that there are other theories about Okura, and we could mention those as well. Alternatively we could simply insert "According to Mikiso Hane" at the beginning of the sentence so that the readers know that it is Hane's viewpoint. However, one way or another, there is still no justification at all for completely deleting this material. We just need to tweak the text in order to find a version we can all agree upon.

I feel the same way about the Katakana-Kugyol connection. Many if not most scholars do advocate this theory. Not only does the source which was previously cited say that the connection in question "seems certain", but moreover I notice that the previous source which was cited here was a book co-written by Ki-Moon Lee and S. Robert Ramsey which states that "many in Japan as well as Korea" agree with this theory. An article in the Japan Times, "Katakana system may be Korean, professor says", also reports that the latest evidence gives strong support to this theory. Scholars don't know for sure when exactly Katakana and Kugyol were first developed, and I'm aware that other theories about the origins of Katakana do exist, but there is still no reason to delete the text in question entirely. This theory is advocated by a very large body of reputable scholars, so it is clearly worth a mention. As I said before, we might need to tweak the text to find a version we agree upon, but that is still not a justification for deleting it entirely. Furthermore, there is no reason to force this article to line up with the article on Kugyol because that articles does not contain any citations to speak of. It should go without saying that a reliably sourced statement in one Wikipedia article does not need to be changed to match an unsourced claim in another Wikipedia article.CurtisNaito (talk) 02:00, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

• Comment

There are books that say katakana is not derived from Kugyol. On the contrary, katakana is a mother of kugyol.

• When the same family-based approach is applied to East Asian scripts, though, the result is potentially misleading, in that it obscures the range of influences involved. At worst, the result can be simplistic and therefore controversial theories of mother -> daughter linear relations between scripts are suggested, e.g.:
  • 'phags-pa -> han'gul
  • katakana -> kugyol
  • Chinese character script -> Khitan, Tangut, Yi, Jurchen, Sui ... etc.

...

However, there are reason to doubt a direct connection between katakana and kugyol. First, although the fact that visually identical forms have totally different values and derivations does not discount influence - as our comparison of katakana and the guanhua/ zhuyin systems in section 2 illustrates - the chronology of the scripts does not suggest such influence. The earliest use of katakana is dated to 828, and the script soon made the transition from an 'auxiliary' script providing interlinear glosses to a writing system in its own right (Habein 1984: 24). No extant use of kugyol exists before the fourteenth century, and the script was exclusively 'auxiliary' and interlinear. We would have expected a similar transition of kugyol, but there is no evidence of such a transition.

• The similarities in forms and functions between Kugyol and Katakana suggest a certain historical connection, but no one has definitely proved it yet.
• These new characters came to be known as kugyol, "orally transmitted secrets." The kugyol are traditionally, but no doubt erroneously, ascribed to Chong Mongju (1337-1392). The same process of selection and abbreviation took place in Japan at the end of the Nara period (710-794) and the beginning of the Heian (794-1185), in particular in the eighth and ninth centuries, therefore much earlier than in Korea, and yielded the katakana or more angular form of the syllabary.

―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 22:23, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Personally I think the text is sufficient as it is. None of those three sources explicitly say that Kugyol was derived from Katakana, whereas Ramsey states unambiguously that Katakana was derived from Kugyol and he puts it in the context of the general influence Korean writing had on Japan. I think we can mainly use the Ramsey source here, while also noting that not all historians agree with it.CurtisNaito (talk) 23:15, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Yamanoue no Okura

First off, Curtis, thank you, for only templating the side of this dispute with which you disagree, even though that side was restoring the previous consensus wording in the face of unilateral edit-warring to impose dubious wording not supported by the source. You are once again showing that incisive and critical insight into Wikipedia policy and guidelines that have defined all your interactions with me up to this point.

Second, if you don't see how this is a misrepresentation of the source, let alone a clear violation of previous consensus both here and on Talk:Yamanoue no Okura, then you need to be blocked per WP:CIR immediately. (@Nishidani: He's at it again -- any suggestions?)

Third, your reverting me (and tagging me, but not TH1980 or Ubikwit), as revenge for my previous actions is pretty disgusting. You should be reverted just for that, let alone the fact that you admitted in your edit summary that the edit was problematic.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 03:30, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

The source was clearly not being misrepresented. As you can see, the relevant part was quoted above and what was being inserted into the article accurately reflected it. My only concern is that we might want to include other points of view as well. One way of including other points of view would indeed be to change the text slightly. We could add on "According to Mikiso Hane/Nakanishi Susumu/Roy Andrew Miller..." However, the second way of including other points of view would not require any changes to the current text in question at all. The second way is simply to add on other points of view after the text in question. "However according to (scholar x) Yamanoe Okura's poetry does not exhibit Korean influence on Japanese literature."CurtisNaito (talk) 03:35, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Since you called Nishidani I should point out incidentally that he said, I think Yamanoue no Okura should be included. I don't think anyone has ever said that similar material should not be included, the only is question how to include it. We can either modify the existing text, or add on new text, but one way or another I don't think there is a good reason to delete it entirely.CurtisNaito (talk) 03:57, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

There are various takes on this issue The Princeton Companion to Classical Japanese Literature--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 04:20, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

@User:CurtisNaito: Mikiso Hane is NOT a notable/reliable source on the Man'yōshū, so including him in a list of literary scholars (is he one?) who consider Okura to have been of Kudaran origin is ridiculous. We could cite dozens of more notable/relevant scholars, but naming the father of the theory (Watanabe Kazuo came first, but...) should be enough. Hane's work is a general historical survey on Japan, hence his poor grasp of the Okura Toraijin Theory. You say he cited Miller -- I don't doubt it, since Miller is about the only mainstream source that calls him "Yamanoe Okura". If you want a single, reliable, well-informed, well-written, highly accessible and very mainstream source that backs up the vast majority of my wording, try Keene, Seeds in the Heart (1999 Columbia University Press edition), Chapter 3, notes 9 (160) and 208 (173), and page 139.

I also must say -- I never thought I'd have to argue this point on this page with Korean nationalists; please understand, I accept the theory as the most reasonable explanation for what we do know about Okura, and consider it to have received the support of the vast majority of scholars who actually matter. But we still can't call him "a Korean who lived in Japan", because that is not the theory that has such broad acceptance. And almost no serious scholar considers him to represent a "Korean influence on Japanese literature", since most of the textual evidence for his continental origins is rooted in his knowledge of the Chinese and Indian classics.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:53, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm not aware that you have been arguing with any "Korean nationalists" here. Mikiso Hane is a reliable, secondary source and there is no evidence that he misunderstood anything about Yamanoe no Okura. Tertiary source means a dictionary or encyclopedia, so a history of Japan is not a tertiary source. Mikiso Hane, Nakanishi Susumu, and Roy Andrew Miller are three serious scholars who clearly believe that Yamanoe no Okura's poetry represents Korean influence on Japan. All three sources also say he was of Korean immigrant origin, so among advocates of the Korea theory including Miller there is no disagreement that he was indeed a Korean living in Japan, though naturally that is not the only way he can be accurately described. This current version of the text is decent if we add a citation and delete the inappropriate comment. It would also be helpful to tack on Nakanishi's comment about the direct influence that Korean poetry had on Yamanoe no Okura's work.CurtisNaito (talk) 10:12, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

When I say "nationalist" I mean people who read modern Korean nationality into people who died 1300 years ago. Jagello and KoreanSentry are two examples of Korean nationalist POV-pushing SPAs with whom I have been forced to argue on this page. TH1980 is a ... well, maybe not Korean; I can't tell, since some of his/her edits have been to articles on the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. But certainly their edits here and on The Magnificient Seven have had an unpleasant anti-Japanese flavour. I have also argued with Japanese ultra-nationalists on this very issue. The problem here is that on one side we have Korean ultranationalists misrepresenting the scholarly consensus as "Okura was a South Korean poet who proved the superiority of Korean culture to Japanese!!!!11111!!" and on the other we have Japanese ultranationalists responding "Okura was not a South Korean poet and he didn't prove the superiority of Korean culture to Japanese!!!!11111!!". None of these ultranationalists have a proper grasp of what the scholars actually say, but sadly on English Wikipedia (and on this article in particular) we have far more ultranationalists than impartial users who rationally assess what the scholars are saying. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 10:30, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Well, I think we can solve the problem simply by sticking to the material presented in the relevant reliable sources. Miller is a reliable source whose article states both that Yamanoe no Okura was Korean and that he represents a Korean cultural influence on Japan. If Miller is a reliable source, then he can't also be a ultranationalist. All we have to do is report what he said in the article. As I said though, I'm open to the possibility of also mentioning an alternative theory to the Korea theory.CurtisNaito (talk) 10:42, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

EDIT CONFLICT (not in response to Curtis' comment immediately above) Also, can you give me a source on Nakanishi's statement on the influence of Korean poetry? I don't think citing a Miller book review for such a statement is appropriate, and it would be better if we could check the original Nakanishi source. Also, as I pointed out, this could be a comparison of Okura's poetry to later Korean poetry, establishing connections between Okura and hypothetical, no longer surviving precursors to this later Korean poetry. That's not the same thing, and if it is so then we should say so directly in the article. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:36, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

RESPONSE Again, please be specific as to what you mean by "[Miller's] article": Miller had a long and storied career; he was a diligent scholar of Old Japanese and comparative linguistics and literature, and a great writer (I have never read anything he wrote that I didn't enjoy); he was not, as far as I can tell, popular among his peers in the field of Japanese literary studies -- he had very harsh words for just about all of them at some point, and I can't imagine anyone writing that way about their friends, even if they disagreed; he wrote about Okura, to the best of my knowledge, twice -- once, earlier, in his review article of the translation of Kato's A History of Japanese Literature: The First Thousand Years, and later, in more detail in his original, and brilliant, monograph "Yamanoue Okura, a Korean Poet in Eighth-Century Japan"; the latter was mostly focused on analyzing the influence, not of "Korean poetry" (whatever that means) of a particular sutra and school of Indian Buddhism that had been popular in Baekje, but not Silla or the Japanese archipelago, on his poetry. Most scholars, though, don't focus so much on the Indian Buddhism influence -- they focus on Okura's knowledge of Chinese studies. I have never said Miller was an ultranationalist -- he was the opposite, and that is part of why I admire him so much. It is also why I find it especially annoying -- even offensive -- when Korean ultranationalist Wikipedians who have never read any of his other works -- and would probably be scandalized by the things he said about ancient Korea not be a single unified nation of one race speaking one language -- cherry-pick quotes from him to support their own 2015 political agendas. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:36, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

I mentioned a number of times that the article by Miller I have been using is "Plus Ça Change" for the Journal of Asian Studies. Miller notes that Nakanishi has described direct Korean influences on Yamanoe Okura's works. To quote another work which is even more clear, Gary Ebersole says in an essay in the History of Religions, "It was, and sometimes still is, important for many Japanese scholars to claim the Manyoshu as a produce of the pure Japanese spirit. Recent scholarship, however, has made this position untenable. Nakanishi Susumu, for example, has conclusively shown that the famous Manyo poet Yamanoe Okura was himself a Korean immigrant. Moreover, Nakanishi has shown significant direct parallels between some of Yamanoe Okura's poems and the Old Korean hyangga." In other words Okura's poems are not purely Japanese, but rather show Korean influence. Miller's views about Korean influence on Japan were outlined in his essay(Curtis, the "essay" by Miller you are citing is a book review, not an essay. Please learn to speak English. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 15:32, 5 May 2015 (UTC) ) in a clear manner and I haven't seen any evidence that any Wikipedia user has ever willfully or accidentally misrepresented them.CurtisNaito (talk) 12:26, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Okay, this is turning into an IDHT shitfest of Talk:Emperor Jimmu proportions. When that happened I clicked on a few links and found a dubious edit on the article on a popular poet/children's author whose family's cafe I frequent; that led to a separate shitstorm I have only just recently finally begun to recover from. I don't have the energy for another IDHT shitstorm like last year. You mentioned the book review you are citing on this page, but by that time you had already posted an ANEW thread that shut down discussion here, and I didn't see your post here until sometime after you had cited "Miller" a bunch of times on the ANEW thread. Additionally, sometime before you posted the above reference to "Miller" I specified this, and asked you to refrain from citing Miller's brief, non-considered discussion of the toraijin theory in the book review, when he also wrote an entire, separate, 20-page monograph specifically addressing the topic. Also, could you give me a date for "the History of Religions"? I checked Ebersole's faculty page and couldn't find it. Depending on when he wrote the quote, it is either too outdated to be quoted on this talk page in 2015, or too out-of-touch with scholarship in the relevant field (he is, after all, a historian of religions, not literature). Most of the relevant scholarship on the issue was done in the 1960s, and the debate had largely died down by the mid-1980s, with a majority accepting that Okura came from the peninsula but with some dissenters. "Recent scholarship, however, has made this position untenable. Nakanishi Susumu, for example, has conclusively shown that the famous Manyo poet Yamanoe Okura was himself a Korean immigrant." -- Nakanishi Susumu "has" shown this some fifty years ago -- why are you using such out-of-date sources, Curtis? Also, you still haven't answered my question -- are the Korean hyangga Nakanishi compared to Okura's poetry older than Okura's poetry, or more recent? If the latter, I'm not criticizing Nakanishi's scholarship (I do, of course, consider him to be correct), but we need to specify that if we are going to cite it in the article. Your overreliance on far-removed, English-language, American tertiary sources is a problem on this point.

If you don't specifically address my concerns in your next response, I will take it as meaning you are unwilling to discuss with me on the talk page, and I will revert any counter-consensus attempt you make to edit the article. I will not continue to dance to your tune, Pied Piper. You are misrepresenting your sources, and your sources themselves have been cherry-picked to allow for maximum misrepresentation. You did this the other times we interacted as well. I am getting sick and tired of this behaviour from you. I don't know why you have not been indefinitely blocked yet, or at least TBANned from editing articles on early Japanese history. I would say "goodbye", but I guess I am still technically obliged to assume that your next edit to this page will be an intelligent, well-reasoned response.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 15:30, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

The Ebersole source is from 1983 and there is no reason why it shouldn't be regarded as reliable. I think the quote from Ebersole that I provided does indicate that Okura was influenced by Korean poetry.CurtisNaito (talk) 15:40, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

What exactly is the Ebersole document to which you are referring?--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 17:10, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

An essay which I quoted above which provides the same information as the Miller article, noting that Okura's works demonstrate Korean influence on Japanese literature.CurtisNaito (talk) 17:15, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Refcite?--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 17:16, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

"The Religio-Aesthetic Complex in Manyoshu Poetry with Special Reference to Hitomaro's Aki no No Sequence," History of Religions 23,1 (August, 1983)CurtisNaito (talk) 17:18, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Too much detail. Even if Ebersole is right, he's still fringe: not in the sense that the view he holds is fringe, but in the sense that he is on the fringe of Japanese literary scholarship. @Curtis: What exactly do you want this page to say? Do you think we should just say "Okura was a Korean living in Japan"? That's not what any of your sources say. It's a popular theory among literary scholars, probably the most popular regarding Okura's origins, but it is not supported by direct documentary evidence and there are no reliable sources covering the theory in detail that just call him "a Korean". We should not be naming every single scholar in every remotely related discipline who has spoken positively of Nakanishi's theory: we should just say a large number of literary scholars accept the theory, and either only name Nakanishi Susumu, or maybe name Watanabe Kazuo and Nakanishi Susumu, or maybe name one or both of the former and name Aoki Kazuo as the primary opponent of the theory. Per WP:POVFORK, this page should not go into more detail than the main Yamanoue no Okura article (why would it? what are the motivations of the users who want it to?), and that page already saw a very specific consensus on this that a single sentence is sufficient. That was User:Shii's proposal, and User:Sturmgewehr88 agreed -- I came out on the losing side of that argument, so if anyone here wants to reopen the discussion so my preferred, thorough discussion can be re-added to that article, I am all for that. But any discussion of revising the previous consensus to expand the Yamanoue no Okura article should be taking place on Talk:Yamanoue no Okura, not here. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 00:33, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Well, according to Wikipedia's "other stuff exists" policy, we don't need to harmonize every article. It's obvious that both the article Korean influence on Japanese culture and the article Yamanoe Okura are in need of expansion. We can't decline to expand the article Korean influence on Japanese culture on the grounds that the Yamanoe Okura article has not yet been expanded. Each need to be expanded and they don't have to be expanded in tandem with one another. And there's no need to question the good faith of other users. No one has had any bad motivations for wanting to improve article content. As for what I want the article to say, I was okay with Nishidani's version which summed up most of the main points. Basically many scholars believe that he was Korean and many scholars believe that Korean culture influenced his writings. The general details of this is all that needs to be said.CurtisNaito (talk) 00:49, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is about page deletion! I'm talking about writing responsibly so readers don't come away misinformed and not —maintaining forked articles that violate consensus established on the talk pages of the main articles. WP:AFD doesn't come into it at all. Your constant incompetent, IDHT behaviour and failure to understand Wikipedia's core policies and guidelines, let alone reliable sources, is really beginning to try my patience: I was about to close this comment with "you bloody buffoon". Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:30, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

It's the same principle. The fact that one article has not yet been expanded is NOT a justification to stop expanding a different article. As I said, many scholars believe that he was Korean and many scholars believe that Korean culture influenced his writings. That's what this article should indicate. I suppose that the Yamanoe no Okura article ought to indicate the same, but as long as this article is reliably sourced there is no requirement that they line up perfectly. I think you should have discussed your recent deletions before going ahead with them. Nishidani described his additions as "the obvious edit". I suppose Nishidani's version is good enough so I support it for now. I don't know whether TH1980 supports it, but he is at least clearly in favor of expanding coverage on Okura. If you are the only user who does not want expanded coverage of this issue, against three users who do, then you are deleting material without consensus.CurtisNaito (talk) 02:44, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

For the last bloody time, no scholars believe he was "a Korean", and you will never find any sources that say this. Why can't you get it through your thick skull that the modern idea of "Korean nationality" didn't exist in the seventh century!? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 10:07, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Again ... gugyeol and katakana?

Okay, if Lee and Ramsey consider katakana to have come into being after the tenth century, they are WP:FRINGE and should not be cited in the article. If (and I suspect this to be the case) "gugyeol" has more than one meaning, or our gugyeol article is wrong in saying it was developed in the Goryeo dynasty, then that article needs to be updated to include that information. Or by "katakana", do Lee and Ramsey (neither of whom are Japanese specialists) mean "specific details of how the katakana script was used to gloss Buddhist sutras written in Classical Chinese"? If the latter, then Lee and Ramsey are using clumsy/vague terminology that they borrowed/misinterpreted from more reliable specialist sources, and a better source should be located.

At present, our readers (and I) have no choice but to click the link and read that gugyeol developed after the tenth century, and so katakana must be later.

Per WP:BURDEN, this isn't my job: the users who want to include this claim need to justify it by finding reliable sources that back them up and editing responsibly so that readers don't get the wrong impression.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:23, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

You can't declare Lee and Ramsey to be fringe based only off your own opinion. What source do you have stating that Lee and Ramsey are fringe? As I said before, there is no need to force a reliably sourced statement in one article to line up with a unsourced statement in another article.CurtisNaito (talk) 02:27, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

It's not "my opinion" that katakana developed in the ninth century: this is the standard scholarly view taught in every university with a Japanese historical linguistics course in Japan and the western world. But also: shit. Just noticed that the current, extant reference to katakana and gugyeol actually doesn't say what I thought it did. It was written by Nishidani based on his correct reading of Lee and Ramsey, that the two system share similarities but their relationship is obscure. This means that when TH1980 added the claim that katakana was "based on" gugyeol he/she was not only lying about the author of the source and misrepresenting its contents, but introducing material to the article that was directly contradicted by other (more accurately sourced) material in the same article!

Damn...

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:39, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

No, TH1980 cited the source correctly. Ramsey said that it "seems certain" that gugyeol influenced the creation of katakana. It was not misrepresented in any way.CurtisNaito (talk) 02:47, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes, but what does that mean? What does Ramsey mean by "gugyeol"? What does he mean by "katakana"? What does he mean by "influenced" and "creation"? All of these are variables we should not have to deal with: Ramsey's essay was a short piece describing, primarily, Japanese influence on modern Korean. In his longer discussion of this topic he was apparently more clear what he meant. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 10:03, 6 May 2015 (UTC)